GEAR GOGGLES

Are you consistently falling for the weasel-faced punk with soot in his hair? Have you ever wiped a halitosis-laden film off your lips after a particularly gross makeout session? Can you not keep your eyes off the greasy longshoreman at your local dive bar just because he knows how to play “Eruption” by Van Halen? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you have most likely been seduced by an ugly musician, and you are entitled to scientific compensation. CREEM s arsenal of powerful minds have come together to explain the phenomenon of wanting to get down with the Moe Szyslaks of the music industry.

Beauty has always been in the eye of the beholder, but it is sometimes horrific to see the sexual couplings that have occurred because of rock ’n’ roll. Throughout history we’ve seen gorgeous people flock to resoundingly unattractive rockers, but why is that? Science may provide some insight. In a study by Austrian researchers published in Frontiers in Psychology in 2022, volunteers were asked to rate a subject’s attractiveness based on facial features combined with musical ability. The researchers wanted to test a theory Darwin had about sexual selection. In 1871. Darwin had suggested that musicality evolved as a means of courtship display for potential reproductive partners. He wrote, “I conclude that musical notes and rhythm were first acquired by the male or female progenitors of mankind for the sake of charming the opposite sex.”